It's great to show the British working class people what the left is up to in this country and how relevant all that is for their housing and job problems, so they know who to vote next elections.

Thanks a lot!

so who should the working class vote for next election then.....so which political party is really concerned and will address the housing needs and jobs issue for the working class then ???? what choice do the working class have when all the major and the minor parties are middle class orientated.you really thini that the bulk of the working classes are taking much notice of what is going on in manchester.remember according to some in the political classes we are all middle class now(god preserve us) so thats it the working class are now abolished according to blair and co and they are patronised by you on the other hand.no wonder they concern themselves with reality tv game shows and footy rather than listen to anything you have to say.
josh
ps:why don't many members of sheffield samba band look at the camera when the pictures are being taken why so camera shy.the pipes and drums of the orange order lodge from handsworth stare into the camera bold and proud(admitedly they are all raving mad and misguided but theydo have courage of conviction)

I think that comment is a bit unfair. I have been on most of the marches so far apart from this one. It is not as if I wanted to do it either or waste people's time when there are other issues. I did not ask for this war to start or to have to spend hours of time campaigning against it. However the Iraqi people are facing not just problems with their jobs and housing but also actual threat to their lives. It is not as if the Iraq war is not a British issue either when it has absolutely tied itself to the war and with our troops dying because of it. The housing problems faced by the Iraqis include not just the usual problems people have to face anywhere but also the fact that many have been destroyed - some with bodies still inside. Job issues include the fact that anyone seen working for the US/British-installed Government in Iraq is risking their life.

surely the lesson of this is that no political party can be trusted to do anything but serve themselves and the only restraint is the limit of what they think they can get away with. The way to make them accountable is to take to the streets.

I don't think there were any members of Sheffield Samba Band in the band which is pictured here. This was Rhythms of Resistance and there were at least 50 members from Sheffield, Manchester, Bradford, Hebdon Bridge, Oxford, Cambridge and London.....maybe other places too. Not sure why band members should be looking at camera, Josh? I think we were concentrating on what was happening, not posing for photos.

The official anti-war movement is in the hands of Blair's agents. The ambiguous and limp slogan, "time to go" interested me, for obvious reasons. I got my answer today when all the media reports stated that "time to go" referred to the withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan and Iraq.

HOW VERY CLEVER GALLOWAY AND BENN HAVE BEEN ON BEHALF OF THEIR MASTER. Tell the dribblers that they are attending a march with a slogan PRETENDING to be about removing Blair, and then, once the protest is underway, telling the media to report that the slogan is calling for the troops to go.

Someone once said "there's one born every second". Well today, I think it was more like 30,000. 30,000 sheep led to the slaughter (the slaughter of their hopes, dreams, and very reason to bother turning up to protest).

ONCE AGAIN,TO MAKE THE POINT CRYSTAL CLEAR- YOU WERE TOLD THAT THE PROTEST WAS ANTI-BLAIR, AND THAT WAS WHAT THE SLOGAN MEANT. THE ORGANISERS FOOLED YOU, AND MADE IT CLEAR TO ALL THE MEDIA OUTLETS THAT THE SLOGAN REFERED TO ***TROOPS*** GOING, NOT BLAIR.

from the BBC:
The theme was "Time To Go" - a call to get troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Are YOU going to find out who fooled you? Are YOU going to find out who was responsible for the psyop behind the slogan? Are YOU going to find out the names of Blair's agents within the so-called anti-war movement that used and abused you? Are YOU even bothered that Blair has more trouble cutting butter with a hot knife than he does running circles around his opponents?

The New Reich conference that begins tomorrow is going to cheer Blair to the rafters. Blair is going NOWHERE. Operation: Jam Tomorrow (the settling of a nervous public with a promise that Blair will stand down sometime) is nothing more than a cynical continuation of a program begun years ago. If Blair is forced to aquire more time, Brown will declare Blair the best man for the job (and you'd need an IQ is single figures not to see that coming). Blair obviously doesn't expect to need to use that strategy though, convinced as he is that he'll have WW3 started with his genocide of Iran long before a years time.

Marching to the slogan of "time to go". People should be ashamed of being so thick. Its like a joke out of "The Simpsons", where Burns manipulates anti-Bush protestors to march with the slogan "time to go", and then has the news reports broadcast that the marchers meant "time to go out and vote for Bush".

HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I SAID "DO NOT LET THE ORGANISERS OF ANTI-BLAIR PROTESTS DESIGN YOUR PLACARDS"?

The people behind the "time to go" slogan were concerned about only ONE thing- buying Blair more time. The general public, as a consequence of this act of manipulation, get to hear (falsely)that 30,000 people were complaining about "our boys" dying in Afghanistan and Iraq. Their response is obvious- they sympathise with what they THINK the protest was about, but have been brainwashed to believe that it is not possible for 'our boys' to leave a job half-done.

Thus the protest is FULLY neutralised. Those that were on the protest get a satisfied feeling because they were told one thing by the stop-the-war leaders. Those that heard about the protest think it merely represented an obvious complaint about the rotten time "our boys" must be going through.

Blair is rolling on the floor howling with laughter as I type.

yeah right i know better who was there,stoopid response from you.

THE WISEDOM OF THE TWILIGHT ZONE IS SHINING BRIGHTLY TONIGHT. I AGREE WITH EVERY WORD YOU JUST SAID......BUT WHEN YOU HAVE FOOLS LIKE "ROR HAPPILY PLAYING SAMBA" THINKING THAT BANGING A FEW DRUMS ON THE STREETS OF MANCHESTER WILL HAVE ANY EFFECT ON THIS GOVERNMENTS FORIEGN POLICY THEN WHAT CHANCE FOR RATIONAL LEVEL HEADED PEOPLE.
MOST OF THE NAIVE FOOLS WHO MARCHED TO AND THROUGH MANCHESTER TODAY WILL NOT KNOW OR EVER KNOW THAT THEY WERE DUPED.....
"TIME TO GO" IS CLEARLY A REFERENCE TO BLAIR LEAVING OFFICE ASAP.
"TIME TO LEAVE" WOULD IN MY MIND BE THE OBVIOUS SLOGAN ABOUT TROOP WITHDRAWL.
"ROR HAPPILY PLAYING SAMBA" STATES THAT PEOPLE IN THE SAMBA BAND WERE JUST CONCENTRATING ON WHAT THEY WERE DOING.....I WOULD SAY THEY WERE LOOKING JUST PLAIN STUPID ON ANOTHER POINTLESS WEEKEND OF MIDDLE CLASS RECREATIONAL PROTESTING.
TIME TO GO.....YOU FEELING OK
TIME TO GO.....YOU FEELING OK (PINK FLOYD FROM THE WALL) remember.
JOSH

I think Josh, you need to read well my post, the key is the part that says "how relevant all that is for their housing and job problems".

Obviously the British working class doesn't give a damn shit about Afghanistan, or Iraq, if they want a political party that cares about their housing and job needs, the best vote is the BNP. So you basically doing the campaign very well, I encourage you to carry on your struggle for palestine, iraq , lebannon, and iraq , by all means, please do campaing for all those countries as hard as you can. I am fully convinced the British people doesnt give a shit about it, and they will prove that in the polls, wait and see. But you can always keep Bethnal Green with 34% muslim inmigrants on it surely it can't be that difficult.

As an ACTIVIST & SAMBISTA, I think that Josh is missing the point of the purpose that having musicians and other performers at a demonstration actually serves.

You may as well say, "Why bother painting a picture, it's not going to change the world".

The point is that it works on many different levels simultaneously.
Not only does it transform a predictable A to B walk into a Carnival vibe, but it's also about CELEBRATING the fact that we've all come together to do this thing, as well as making sure that we're noticed several blocks away from the march itself!

To have music and performing arts at any large gathering like this is to also provide a very powerful and uplifting motivational force, something which the Police can NEVER achieve, and that's why they pay us so much attention, because we're grabbing a bit of crowd control power from them, and they don't like it.

We should be flattered by this attention from them really, shouldn't we...?

If this isn't Community Music, I don't know what is.

Besides, even before there were Samba Bands at marches there were still people singing and chanting, as well as Brass Bands and sometimes Folk musicans, as well as on occasion Circus performers (Jugglers, Jesters, Harlequins, Clowns, Mimes etc), so what we're doing is continuing a long tradition.

Know your history.

i have read some bonkers stuff by twilight but this time they have surpassed themselves.
i kindof knew it was time to go BOTH for troops and for blair (ie for 2 things)

speaking of the simpsons DOH

you idiot

The Stop the War Coalition NEVER said this was about Blair. All of their e-mails and the website always said it was about taking the troops and never said it was about Blair. Having said that a placard with the word "GO" in large letters is a truly lame, limp response to the killing of 100,000+ innocent bodies.

Wow, what a lot of looney comments. Some clarifications for anyone interested in what happened and why:
- The preparatory meetings to the demo made it absolutely clear that 'Time to Go' referred to both Blair and to getting troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
- The themes of the speeches were get Blair out, tell his successor that following the same foreign policy is unacceptable, pull out the troops and don't spend billions on replacing the Trident nuclear arsenal but spend it on housing, education, pensions and so on.
- If working class means people who have to work for a living, then there were lots of working people there who obviously do care about the wars (as well as about housing, the NHS etc etc). There were shed loads of trade unions there including those representing people working in the public services.
- If working class means people who are very poor, then its well known and totally understandable that very poor people are much less likely to turn up to demonstrate on behalf of apparently altruistic causes, simply because they've got more immediate concerns. Basic 'hierarchy of needs' stuff.

oops sorry josh, we did not realise we were ment to pose for the pics! We were not there for some self promotion of looking pretty in pics! (there's a war you know, thats more important). As for not understanding what and how creative activism works may be check out
 http://www.rhythmsofresistance.co.uk/

good luck
x

There is no class, Josh, only stupid people like you.

There's just something about the warm atmosphere of unity, solidarity and positivity that always cheers me up.

I have just returned to Sheffield from the Time to Go demo and was amazed by the number of people who turned up - I think the figure of approx 56,000.

How many people in the UK is terrorist dictator Tony Blair failing to listen to ?

The people of the UK don't want War and they don't want Blair . . . maybe he may start to hear this message after saturdays demo . . . or maybe he will continue to do whatever Bush tells him and not what the people of the UK who he supposedly represents actually want . . .


A couple of observations . . .

The samba band were fantastic

As were the number of self organised school children who turned up with banners shouting "Bliar Bliar pants on fire!" and "Blair, Bush, USA How many kids have you killed today?!"

Was it just coindence that demo route managed to miss every branch of McDonalds ? (Although Starbucks, M&S and a few others got some rather loud booing)

Was nice to see many members of the police force supporting the NO2ID campaign by failing to wear their badge numbers . . .


Here are my pics (Please note pixelised faces are due to the number of indymedia photos which keep appearing on Redwatch).